The communities affected by the Tajo-Segura transfer multiply the pressure on the Government after the opinion of the Council of State

The water war over the Tajo-Segura transfer has entered a new phase.

All the affected communities —Valencian Community, Murcia, Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia— maintain that the Council of State has agreed with them in its latest report (although they defend opposing positions), while they multiply —regardless of whether they are presided over by the PP or the PSOE— the pressure on the Government of Pedro Sánchez.

According to the planned calendar, the Council of Ministers should approve next Tuesday the Royal Decree Project by which 12 hydrological plans for the Spanish river basin are reviewed for the period 2022-2027.

And this revision implies a cut in the most controversial transfer of those that exist in Spain: the one that diverts water from the largest river on the Peninsula, the Tagus,

The (non-binding) opinion of the Council of State, the highest advisory body of the Government, considers "it is necessary to arbitrate an effective mechanism for the coordination of the hydrological plans of the Tagus and Segura basins, among themselves and in relation to the regulatory regulations of the transfer”.

"Satisfying the general interest demands that the complete and binding ecological flow regime, which the Tagus plan must necessarily establish, be made compatible with an element of national hydrological planning such as the transfer through the Tagus-Segura aqueduct. ”, concludes the 95-page letter, in which there are other allusions to the necessary environmental sustainability of the river.

The four affected communities celebrate the ruling, each one interpreting it in their favor,

and the Ministry of Ecological Transition is silent.

The issue is very sensitive, even more so when there are only five months to go before the regional and municipal elections.

The royal decree contemplates that the ecological flow of the Tagus (the minimum volume of water that must always be maintained to preserve it from an environmental point of view) will increase progressively between 2023 and 2027, which in practice implies that, in certain cases, the amount of water transferred can be reduced.

Five judgments of the Supreme Court and European legislation require this.

The Valencian Generalitat chaired by Ximo Puig (PSOE) clings to the recommendation that the Council of State has launched to the Government to guarantee "coherence between the assigning and receiving basins", which would limit the cut.

The regional Executive asks that the Government of Pedro Sánchez reconsider the royal decree from "rigor and dialogue", without ruling out the judicial route if the plan of the Ministry of Ecological Transition to reduce the volume of transferred water is maintained - as in fact already It has been done since the summer of 2021—against the demands of the irrigators of Alicante, Murcia and Almería.

More information

Keys to the Tagus-Segura transfer.

Why is it said that the water war returns?

The Valencian president has stated that the opinion of the Council of State seems to him "a good start to the journey".

"We want the Government to attend to the reasons proposed by the Council of State, but beyond that we are in the sphere of negotiation, of the agreement, because we want water forever and for that we need any tribalism, fundamentalism or misappropriation to be defeated", has Puig urged.

His Executive highlights the warning from the Council of State that the lack of coordination can cause "a relevant condition to an element of national hydrological planning such as the transfer of the Tagus-Segura."

In a much tougher position than that of Puig, the president of Murcia, Fernando López Miras (PP), has said that Pedro Sánchez "already has a justification [thanks to the opinion] for not approving the cut to the Tajo-Segura transfer." which from his point of view "is not based on scientific criteria".

An extreme to which the Council of State does not allude at any time.

The position of Emiliano García-Page, another socialist baron and president of Castilla-La Mancha, is very different.

“We have fought to achieve something that seems unbelievable that we have had to go to court.

The water problem is not a problem that Page is right or the president of another community is right.

It is not a capricious decision, today the problem is not political but strictly legal ”, he said this Friday, celebrating that the opinion endorses the cut in the transfer.

According to the Central Union of Irrigators of the Tajo-Segura Aqueduct (SCRATS), cutting the transfer would make the agriculture developed for decades unfeasible: this group ensures that the infrastructure generates more than 100,000 jobs and that its agri-food industry contributes 3,000 million euros to GDP national.

Another fact that stands out is that the three provinces that benefit from the work - inaugurated in 1979 and 292 kilometers long - produce 71% of national exports of vegetables and 25% of fruit.

The price is key: according to the union, the water from the transfer is three times cheaper than that from desalination plants.

Last week thousands of people demonstrated in Madrid against the cut.

The State Council also puts black on white that "there was some confusion" in the National Water Council held on November 29 about the text of the royal decree that the body approved then.

The Valencian Government has defended all this time that the text included a ninth additional provision according to which the Ministry of Ecological Transition would evaluate, depending on the environmental situation, the application of the minimum ecological flows of the Tagus from 2026. That is, that the transfer cut would not be automatic.

But in the wording that came out there was not that clause.

The ruling warns that there was "confusion" about that provision.

And he adds that it would have been "desirable a clear and concrete proposal of the text of the project, preferably in writing".

The Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Valencian Community have since held an intense

over the content of the text that was actually voted on that day in the Water Council.

"The resolution says that this entire process has been not very transparent and opaque," agrees the Murcian president, López Miras.

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